March 26, 2008

I woke up and weighed in at 198.6 today. I am in utter shock. I weighed in 7 times this morning because I just couldn't believe it! The lowest I'd been before was 204. I am so excited. I'm even more shocked because I've had quite a few "bad days". That's what I call the days where I can't control my eating. A bad day. Well you know what? Today's not a bad day. Today's a GREAT day. I'm officially no longer a Clydesdale!

This is a funny post on Slowtwitch. I thought it was funny at first, & then Irealized all but 3 fit me to a tee. #48 because I never went to collage, #47Because I make inmates mow mine (leaves more time to train). & 27 because thereisn't enough time in the day to shave myself from the ankles up. God gave me a365 day a year furr coat.

50. You are over 30 and there is still someone in your life that you refer to as“coach”.49. Your last bike cost more than your first car.48. You have peed outdoors more times in the last year than you did in yourfirst year of university.47. You think of mowing the lawn as a form of cross-training.46. You’ve worn a heart-rate monitor to bed.45. And it wasn’t when you were sleeping.44. You refer to the front hall of your house as the “transition area”.43. When you get home from a training session at the pool, the newspaper is justbeing delivered to your house.42. You have changed more flat tires this year than light bulbs.41. The most frequently used software program on your computer is the one that keeps track of yourworkouts.40. You have no idea why they call Cal Ripken Jr. “Iron Man” when, after all, hewas a baseball player.39. The first three items on your grocery list are Gatorade, power bars, andgels.38. When you floss at night, it’s to get the bugs out of your teeth.37. Your legs move in a cycling motion while you are asleep.36. When you see a drop of blood, your first reaction is that you spilled somered Gatorade.35. You know how far you biked and ran last year, to one-tenth of a kilometre.34. You think the ultimate form of wallpaper is about 64 racing bibs.33. A 19-year old kid who works in a bicycle shop know more about you than yournext-door neighbour.32. Your children are more likely to recognize you if you put your bicyclehelmet.31. You have a vanity licence plate with the work “Kona” in it.30. About half the shirts you own have at least a dozen logos on the back ofthem.29. You don’t find the word “fartlek” in the least bit amusing.28. When you refer to your “partner”, you mean neither your spouse nor theco-owner of your business but the person you run or bike with three times aweek.27. You shave your legs more often than your wife.26. The closest you came to punching somebody was when they disagreed with yourposition on whether wearing a wetsuit amounts to cheating.25. It doesn’t feel right that you can’t “clip “ in and out of the pedals inyour car.24. There is a group of people in your life about whom you are more likely toknow how fast they can swim 100 metres than their surnames or occupations.23. Some of the shorts you wear today are tighter than the ones you wore in highschool.22. You are frustrated with the latest Garmin Forerunner because its livereadings have a margin of error of approximately three per cent.21. There’s a separate load of laundry every week that is just your workoutclothes.20. One of your goals this year is to be faster at getting out of your wetsuit.19. You failed high school chemistry but you could teach a course on lacticacid.18. All you want for Christmas is something called a carbon crank set.17. You wore a digital watch to your wedding.16. You have to have completely separate meals from your spouse because he orshe is on a low-carb diet.15. Your bicycle is in your living room.14. You have stocked up on a brand of cereal because it has a coupon that willsave you money on your next two pairs of running shoes.13. In order to establish a new personal best, you considered peeing withoutgetting off your bike.12. One of your proudest moments is when you lost a toenail.11. When a car follows too closely behind you, you accuse the driver of“drafting”.10. When you went for a job interview, you wrote your social insurance number onyour arm in black marker.9. Your spouse cried during Terms of Endearment; you cried during the televisioncoverage of the Hawaii Ironman.8. You are comfortable discussing the sensitivity of your nipples with other guys.7. Your spouse is looking forward to the day when you will slow down and justrun marathons.6. You have paused in front of the mirror in your wetsuit and thought, “Hey, Ilook like Spiderman.”5. You see no issue with talking about treatments for chafing or saddle rash atthe dinner table.4. You recently asked your spouse out for dinner by asking if he or she wantedto “fuel up” together.3. For you, “bonking” no longer has a sexual connotation.2. The magazine secretly tucked under your mattress has pictures of reallyexpensive bicycles in it.And the No. 1 sign you’re obsessed:1. Most of this list doesn’t seem like a joke to you.

March 25, 2008

Today my coach had scheduled a day of rest. No triathlon training. I don't like taking days off. My training is therapeutic for me. So rather than take the day off I decided to work on my weakest event, my swim. The Japanese Olympic swim team has been training here in Santa Fe for awhile. I figured I could learn allot from swimming at the same time as them. So I called the pool, found out when they'd be training today & just happened to be there at the same time. I didn't learn nearly as much as I thought I would. You see, they speak Japanese in Japan. So although I listened & watched intently, it was like they were speaking another language. Go figure. By watching them I did learn to rotate my shoulders out of the water more as each arm recovers. That made me glide farther on each stroke, thus using less energy & increasing my efficiency. I learned a few other thing also, but nothing else that would of helped my swim speed or technique. I learned that the Japanese swim coaches yell allot. They aren't kind & understanding teachers. Within 30 minutes their coaching staff had 2 swimmers weeping hysterically. I also leaned that they are all shredded, no body fat on any of them.

Another thing I noticed that was disconcerting to me was that all of them, even their largest swimmer had no butt. That's not a good sign for me. The way I see it is1) naturally fast swimmers are built that way, or2) they make themselves that way to be fast. Either way that pretty much makes me as unsuited for swimming as any human being can get. Anyone who's seen me knows I carry allot of junk in my trunk. My friends say I have a Ghetto Buttey. I would argue if I could. But I can't, because I store enough excess calories in my butt it could feed a small country.

Another thing I noticed was every swimmer had to weigh in as soon as they got out of the water. A few of them got quite the butt chewing. I could feel their pain. As most of you know I've been struggling with my weight. In the past 5 years my weight has been from 292 to 200 & everywhere in between. 3 weeks ago I was on a roll. I'd lost 56 lbs. in 4 months. I'm not sure what happened 3 weeks ago. Usually I only eat uncontrollably when I'm stressed or sad. I wasn't stressed or sad 3 weeks ago, but I started struggling to not gorge myself with food. I'd do well for a couple of days, then BAM, out of nowhere I'd be shoveling amazing amounts of food down my gullet. I've been writing down everything I eat. For some reason that seems to stop or slow allot of my overeating. But on Sat I stopped tracking my food intake when I hit 100 weight watcher points. For those of you who aren't knowledgeable about weight watcher points that means I ate well over 5000 calories. I know, I know. That's allot of food. At least I know what the trigger that day was. All the other days of cheating I have no clue. There is good news though. Although I've had a few "bad days" recently I've had enough good days to counter them. I'm at 201 lbs. 6 lbs. from my next goal. 11 lbs. from my ultimate goal. Wow, I can't believe it. I'm only 11 lbs. from 190. That just seems to good to be true. After seeing how much faster I was on the bike at this year's Stealth duathlon compared to last year, I realize that to lose another 11 lbs. would be HUGE. I only weighed 15 lbs. lighter at this years Stealth compared to last year, yet my average speed on the bike was 3 mph faster. I've set up a couple of goals with a time frame to help me attain those goals. Usually when I set a goal & write them down I'm good about focusing myself. Especially since they'll be written down on my blog where others can see how I fair. So here they are1) To be 195 by the Atomic Man Olympic distance Duathlon (my favorite race of all time) on April 27th. That's 6 lbs. I need to lose in 4 weeks. Plenty of time. Very accomplishable. My PR at this race is 3 hrs 1 min. I accomplished that time weighing approximately 230. This is by far the hilliest course I've ever raced on so racing light will be very important with all the climbing. 195 would put me at 35 lbs. lighter than my best Atomic time.2) To be 190 by the Buffman & Squeaky Olympic distance triathlon (my 2nd favorite race) on May 18th. That's an additional 5 lbs. in 3 weeks. Also very doable. My PR at the Buffman & Squeaky, or The Squeaky Buttman as I like to call it was 2 hr 52 minutes done at an approximate weight of 235. This is on the exact same course as the BSLT 70.3. Anyone who knows the BSLT 70.3 knows that its a very hilly & difficult course in a horribly hot climate. If I accomplish this goal I'll be racing at a whopping 45 lbs. lighter than my weight at my PR!!!3) to maintain 190 until IMAZ IN Nov, & hopefully the rest of my life. 190 at IMAZ would put me at 66 lbs. lighter than my DNF attempt at Silverman. It's also very important I get & stay below 200 because I've already raced 2 races for the SW challenge series as an age grouper. No sense not racing as a Clydesdale if I'm not under 200. Well, those are my goals. I'll keep you posted. Thanks for tuning in.

March 21, 2008

Yesterday I was a little down because I had to work another overtime, but I was missing my family very badly. So we decided to take the family to the park before I had to go in. It ended up being one of the best days of my life.Pic 1Cody got to swing for the 1st time. He LOVED it. Nothing but smiles, which is adorable because he only has to teeth in the very front.

Pic 2. First time down the slide. He enjoyed It after the first time. The first one he wasn't so sure about. 2 to slide My little monkey. Climbing a rock wall by herself at only 30 months old! Last week he sat up for the first time by himself

March 17, 2008

At today's Stealth duathlon there were 6 Outlaws. Carl, Mark, Naomi, Karen, Greg S., & myself. Mark was the fastest Outlaw of the day taking 2nd place overall. Mark, Naomi, Carl, & Karen took 1st place in their divisions. Greg took 2nd. And I took 3rd in my first ever race as an AG (more on that later). My cousin Chris took 2nd in his AG & 4th overall in a field of 64. He had the 2nd fastest bike split of the day. I wanted to give a shout out to Jason McClure. He took 2nd place Clyd in the SW challenge series last year. This season he showed up having lost a ton of weight. He's taken 1st place in both of the races he's done as a skinny, 6 foot 6 inch Clyd. He finished today in a time I'm guessing was around 1;22. His bike split was screaming fast. No one deserves it more than him.

The day was a little chilly, probably low 60's. But it felt much colder because of the wind. The wind was blowing a good 20 miles an hour. At the run start I was looking at Jason McClure wondering if I'd be able to hang w/ him today since he'd lost so much weight. I wasn't racing today as a Clyd for the first time in my tri career. I'm racing in the 30-34 ag, but once I start a revelry like Jason & I have I'll always compare myself to him. I was also looking for a fellow blogger Juan Braino. He's currently 1st place in the South West challenge series 30-34 Age Group, the age group I'm competing in now. I have competed against him one other time at the Sully's Super Sprint in 2007 & it was a battle. He & I kept passing each other on the bike over & over again. I ended up coming into T-2 half a bike length before him & pulling away for the win in the pool. But that was his 1st race, he's more experienced & faster now. I never did end up seeing him today. I'm not sure if he raced or not. At the start of the run I took off fast. You see, I've always been a faster runner than most Clydes (excluding the 2 regional clyd legends Brian Pilgrim & Arnold Ciniceros) so I try to get far enough ahead on the run so that I can not give up enough on the swim & bike to stay in the lead. I felt a little slow on the run. I finished the 5K in 24;45, that's slightly under an 8 min mile. Last year I did just under a 7;30 per mile. I was ahead of Justin, but unsure of how much. At T-1 I had an average transition & started off on the bike. I saw Justin coming into T-1 about 2 minutes behind me. That's not as large of a lead as I would usually need to finish the race ahead of him. Once I started on the bike I noticed immediately that I was powerful & fast. Much better than I ever had before. For the first time I was passing people left & right! I couldn't count how many people I passed, but I can tell you only 1 passed me the entire race. That was a shock. I've never been much of a cyclist before. I figure my speed increase was from dropping almost 50 lbs since Nov. I ended up finishing the bike in 55 minutes & change averaging over 20 miles an hour on the bike for the first time ever. My previous bike PR was on a duathlon that had a bike course of only 9 miles long. This race was 30K & still with double the distance & w/ very windy conditions I kept up an ave that was .7 miles an hour faster than my previous PR. Not to shabby. I can't wait to see how my times increase when I get to my ultimate goal of 190 (approximately 25 lbs lighter than today, yes, I did gain about 10 lbs during my 2 week taper & 3 days of carb building). I finished with a total time of 1:19 taking 3rd place at my first race as an AG. Even better was that I finished 13 overall! I ended up keeping my 2 minute lead on Jason that I had built up on the run.

This race has always been one of my favorite races, next only to the Atomic Man Duathlon & the Buffman & SqueakeyOly distance tri. I've always loved this race because its one of the flattest courses in the South West. On flat courses I can utilize my Clydesdale power without being hampered by my weight. I usually finish well at this race. As a matter of a fact this was the 1st race I had ever taken top 3 in the clyd div back in 2006. The RD's at this race has always been the wink link. They've always struggled doing things like starting on time, getting the race results out often 4 hrs after the last racer finishes or not at all, not having the course marked, etc. Today everything was handled impeccably. There was even an amazing pasta dinner served at the awards ceremony. I'll definitely be back to race again at the next Stealth.

Thanks for tuning in, I'm out!

Oh, if anyone knows if Juan Braino completed this race, & what his placing was I'd be very grateful if you'd tell me. He's going to be very tough competition. I'm looking foreword to it.

March 14, 2008

Since my wife has become a stay at home wife I've had to start working at least 6 days a week to make enough money for us to continue living the same life style. Let me interpret my last sentence for all you non-triathletes out there. We cut back on everything except bike equipment, running shoes, gels, Bars, sports drinks, & race entry fees. Why did I fall in love with one of the most expensive sports in history?

Most of the time I like my job. Most of the time I find it challenging, exciting, and look forward to getting on duty to see what interesting thing will happen during that shift. But this week was one of those weeks that tested my patience, made me question what I'm doing with my life. Why the heck am I working in a place where people would jump at the opportunity to kill me. I've had multiple attempt on my life there and I keep going back. Apparently Mama did raise a fool. Here at the State Penitentiary we recently got a new Warden. I really like this new Warden & expect that he will reverse allot of the problems that has developed over the last 3 years. I've worked at the Penitentiary of New Mexico for 12.5 years & this is by far the worse I've ever seen this place. Its not the new Wardens fault that the place has a ridiculous amount of problems even compared to other prisons that have bad reputations. He inherited the issues from the last Warden who was given the choice of quitting or being fired. The last Warden ran this place into the ground.

In the last month we've had 3 education personnel, & 1 officer fired for bringing in banned substances or contraband to inmates. 1 inmate committed suicide, one officer had his throat cut wide open (somehow the jugular was the only thing on the right side of his neck that didn't get sliced wide open), one inmate was stabbed 83 times in the chest, neck, face & eyes, 10 officers has had urine or fecal matter thrown in their face, in the last 5 days we've had 2 inmate overdoses, & 4 correctional officers terminated for excessive force. That would be allot for even a large prison. The facility I work at has less than a thousand inmates and 240 security staff (also known as guards, but don't ever call a corrections officer a guard, WE HATE THAT). That's a very small population of inmates to have so many problems. While working inside the prison we have to do unit checks every half hour. While doing our unit checks we have to insure all the inmates are in their cells & alive. If an inmate ever dies, kills himself, kills someone else, escapes, or is found with any contraband in his possession or cell the officer on duty is held responsible. The last 4 days I was able to work at St. Vincent's hospital watching one of 2 inmates who are there for overdosing. I usually love hospital duty because my only job at the hospital is to make sure the inmate doesn't escape or kill someone. The inmates health is solely the hospitals duty. That's less responsibility for me. I'm all for avoiding responsibility. Speaking of avoiding responsibility, here's a story on how I avoid responsibility. I run & bike along highway 14 when I train. The prison has trusties (inmates who are getting out of prison soon so its assumed they won't do anything to affect their upcoming release) who keep the roads and areas surrounding the prison clear of trash. The inmates often times have their family or friends drop off drugs, knives, & other things onto the side of the road where the inmates will be working the following day so that the trustees can pick up the contraband that was dropped off. The inmate then keesters the contraband (keester means to hide the object in his rectal cavity) to smuggle it into the prison. During my run today I found a steak knife on the side of the road that was completely wrapped up in Saran Wrap. The reason it was dropped off pre-wrapped was so that the inmate could insert the knife into his butt as soon as he found the knife without worrying about cutting up his insides. The officers assigned are supposed to the conduct periodic strip searches & pat downs throughout the day to try & prevent the smuggling of items into the institution. By Federal law only medical personnel can conduct body cavity searches, not that I have any desire to do that, I just mentioned that so you'd understand the limits of our duties. So, back to my story of avoiding responsibility; as soon as I found this knife I ran back to the traffic control building & handed the knife to the officer on duty(he's a rookie, or he would not have fallen for this). Its human nature to grab something from someone when its offered to you. As soon as I handed the officer on duty the shank I had found I said "What's that in your hand?" He said,"uh, I looks like a knife. Why you'd give it to me?" I said, "Wow, you found a shank while on duty? You realize you'll probably get a letter of accommodation for that right?" "Really?""Ya, call the supervisor from your facility & show him where you found it, but leave my name out of it because I'm off duty.""Ok. Gee, thanks. I owe you one. Why don't you want credit for this?" the Fish asked me. We call new guys fish rather than Fu@&ing new guy. New officers seem to prefer the name Rookie, but that would be too nice. So handing off the knife & all responsibility, I continued on my run & I knew he felt this was a win win situation. We kept a dangerous weapon out of the prison, he gets to get a pat on the back, & I don't have to worry about going into work & completing 4 hrs of paper work. The bad news is that he'll be in work late tonight filling out paper paper work, keeping track of the evidence, etc. Its a win win for me, not him. I guarantee you he'll be upset with me for awhile, but I justify my actions by telling myself I taught him a very valuable lesson. Hehehe. 2 weeks ago I did the same thing to my Captain who was on duty. I saw a silver pipe on the side of the road with a green, leafy substance in it. I went up to the Captain on duty, held out my hand with the pipe in it hoping he would take it. When he didn't take it I said "hey Captain, can you smell this & tell me what you think it is?" He took it & started to raise it to his nose, I turned around & headed back onto my run. He knew he'd been had. I heard my Capt yelling obscenities at me for at least a quarter mile. Guys been there for 23 years. He should know better. I'm full of lessons this week. I guess I'm a teacher at heart. Haha!

I appear to be bouncing around allot on my post today. I'll attempt to refocus on my hospital duty; because of the danger level of the inmate at the hospital he had two officers with him at all times. This inmate has priors for everything from murder, throwing urine & feces in officers faces, & rape. He had grabbed a needle from a nurse once who had just given him a shot & stabbed her with it. She now has Hepatitis C because of him. He's a bad man. Scum of the earth. Not only was the inmate very dangerous, but to make it even worse he's a cry baby to boot. Working with him would of been bad enough, but the officer I was working with was equally annoying. I was ready to chew my own arm off to escape by the end of the night. The inmate kept crying all night long, saying things like "I don't feel good. I hurt. I want go home. I don't know why trouble always follows me. I rarely do anything wrong, but I seem to be the only one getting caught. If I'd of had the same opportunities in life you did I'd of been successful too." I can only hear so much of that before I lose all patience. At 4;30am the Drs. decided to remove the Foley from the inmate. He yelled like he was being murdered. He screamed for over half an hour. I'm ready to strangle this guy by 5 am. The Dr.'s told this inmate he had to urinate 80 milligrams by 7am or they would put the catheter back in. They told the inmate to pee in a container so they could measure how much urine he'd released. At 5 am I told him I wanted him to be quiet the last hour of my shift. I told him after I left he could talk, cry, whine, & blame everyone else in the world for his current situation. But until I was gone I didn't want to hear a peep from him again. I told him if I heard him open his mouth again I was going to empty his urinal into the toilet & flush it so the nurses would assume he hadn't peed at which time they would shove that catheter back in.

The officer I was working with that night was equally annoying. We saw an infomercial for a machine that makes your shaving blades never go dull. I told the officer that our shaving blades are not really dull when we throw them away. What happens is that the water evaporates & the mineral deposits left on the blade is what makes the blade feel dull. If you dip your blade in baby oil after your done shaving your blade won't have that issue. He replied "I'll tell you one thing that I heard worked. Pyramids." I was waiting for a punch line or something. None came. I was thinking to myself what the heck does that mean? I was afraid to ask because most of the things he was saying all night long were OUT THERE! But curiosity killed me. I asked "what does pyramids have to do with blades?" He said "that's the reason the Egyptians built the pyramids." Still not understanding his reasoning I asked "Why?""oh, you didn't know? The Egyptians built pyramids to keep their knives sharp." "Must of been a big dang knife", I replied. He just looked at me with a blank look that screamed "wait, wait, I think I missed something." Usually, he had. He then told me that he had bought a snow globe that had a pyramid in it and he'd been keeping his razor on it, but so far he couldn't tell a difference. How is it I always have to work with the crazy ones?

March 09, 2008

One of the reasons I'm doing so well on my training & weight loss is I am VERY competitive. I love a good challenge. On weight watchers online there is a message board called the Fitness Challenge. You can join a challenge you see that interests you, or you can start one of your own. I'm competing in 3 that i have found interesting.1) is called The Biggest Loser, yup you guessed it. Just like on TV, but you can't get voted off. It's a 12 week challenge that you compete to lose the most weight. There are 6 teams (mine is the Blue Crew). You compete as an individual against everyone on all teams, & also we are competing as a team. So far I'm in first place with 18 pounds lost in 4.5 weeks.2) The tour the country challenge: You find a place you travel from and a place you travel too. Mine is Muscle Beach Ca to Virginia Beach Va. 2,746 miles. Each day of training you post how many miles you have trained, add that onto your total miles trained since March 1st. And how many miles you have left to complete your particular mileage goal. I'm shooting to complete this in a 6 month period.3) An aquatic Century. I track my swim mileage each time I swim seeing how long it takes to rack up 100 miles in the pool. I'm hoping to complete this no later than Dec.

I was hoping to get some other fellow bloggers & Outlaws to compete in the aquatic century also. I figure I'll post my monthly progress on the Outlaw message board at http://www.outlawstriathlon.com/ & the Mile High Multisport blog at http://milehighmultisport.blogspot.com/ at the end of each month. Anyone else want to try their hand at an aquatic century? Feel free to log your progressive mileage at the Outlaws message board also. good luck & happy training.

March 08, 2008

The USAT rankings are out. IN 2006 my USAT ranking in triathlon was a 67.95. In 07 it was only a 65.23. Either everyone else got faster, or that extra 25 pounds I raced with all last year slowed me down. For my peace of mind I'll say it was everyone else got faster.

My duathlon ranking for 2006 was 65.95. This year it was a 68.21! A big improvement, but still not something to brag about.

Overall I think there's going to be some serious changes in my USAT rankings in 08. I'm really excited about this season.

My Weight Watchers weigh in was today, I weighed in at 202. I am now officially at the lightest I've ever weighed as an adult.

March 05, 2008

When I fail at something I always try to come back stronger & smarter. I realized after my SilvermanDNF I had ALLOT of improvements I needed to do to be able to accomplish an Iron distance event. Going into the silverman I was overweight, I rarely swam, I had poor strength to weight ratio on my bike, I was a horribly slow cyclist at long distances, & my speed at long distance runs was poor. So far since Nov I've lost 51 pounds, I've been swimming more now than I ever have, I'm already a much better runner at long distances, & I'm doing a great program built by Pete Alfino of Mile High Multisport to improve both my endurance & speed on the bike.

So far my best swim at a race was at the Jay Benson where I swam 400 meters in 8:30. That is an average of 1:56 per 100 meters. Today while swimming I did a 500 meter warm up, followed by 3X500 yards #1 free style, #2 paddles & PB, #3 free style. On my first 500 after the warm up I swam free style 500 yards in 7:45. My 2nd 500 yard free style I did in 7:31 for a 1:30 ave per 100 meters. That's an improvement on my average swim time of 26 seconds per 100 meters. If hypothetically I was able to keep up that average over an Iron distance I would complete the swim portion of an Iron in 1 hr 5 minutes compared to the 1 hr 50 min swim that I completed at the Silverman. That would of been a 45 minute faster swim. I would of been close to the bike cut off if I'd of had 45 minutes more time on the bike. If I consider that I'm allot lighter so I'd be faster & a better climber on the bike, I'm positive I'd of completed the Silverman's bike leg before the cut off. Even in Nov at 256 pounds the run was never a concern for me. I'd of been slow, but there was no doubt that I'd of completed the marathon by the cut off time. I'm signed up for Ironman Arizona in Nov of this year. I still have 8 months to improve all 3 disciplines. I'm motivated & approaching my training with more intelligence, with a better diet, & I'm making improvements on my swim hand over fist. I hope that will be enough to complete a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike, & a 26.2 mile run in 17 hrs. There's not many things I've wanted more than to become an Ironman, especially since I failed so miserably at my first attempt. You see, I believe it's not how hard you can punch, but how hard you can get punched and continue.